No. 149.] 333 ' 



Thaer, and the cost of instruction to be paid by the government. 

 Under this system it was soon found that the working part of it 

 was for the benefit of proprietors who did not go on to try expe- 

 riments but worked for profit. The business of teaching soon 

 fell off and the reputation of the experimental farm of Mceglin 

 hardly survived its founder, Von Thaer. 



The superior agricultui*al schools of Prussia, more recently 

 founded, are on a similar plan. Schwert understood the vicious 

 character of it, and in his fine agricultural institute at Hohen- 

 heim, in 1818, altered the plan. Hohenheim ischool, placed on 

 public domain and worked at the expense of the public treasury, 

 soon rose above the mixed schools of Prussia, which hitherto 

 prevailed. Without being precisely experimental, the work of 

 the farm became eminently progressive, and notwithstanding 

 the very injurious and too frequent changes of its Director — ag- 

 ricultural instruction there received developments before un- 

 known. The product of the farm was about 1000 francs ($200.) 

 It is now the most perfect school of the kind in all Germany. 

 That of Schleisheim in Eavaria, founded in 1822, and that of 

 Tharan, of Saxony founded in 1830, are evidently chalked out of 

 this great model of Hohenheim. 



It was also reserved for Wurtemburg to experiment like 

 Hohenheim, on the creafion of working schools for farmers. The 

 organization ot like schools at Ellwangen, and at Ochsenhausen 

 in 1842, was a new step in the way of agricultural training. 



With the exception of some schools specially consecrated to 

 the study of some particular branch of farming, or of gardening, 

 in Prussia, and elsewhere too, the teaching in the German school 

 was, in reality, more theoretical than practical. Exclusively ac- 

 cessible to families rich enough to pay for the board and instruc- 

 tion of their sons for several years, a matter impossible to the 

 working men of the land. This created two obstacles. 



First — The spirit of caste, which in German manners separates 

 absolutely the different classes of society. 



Secondly — The very nature of teaching, suitable to laborers. 

 This last reason is so powerful, that throughout Germany, as well 



